


If You Breathe, I Breathe

by MadameFluffnStuff



Series: Breathless [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, breathingimpaired!Aang, idk what to call this au yet, medicalstudent!Katara, modern!AU, servicedog!Appa, will add more tags tonight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:34:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27147421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameFluffnStuff/pseuds/MadameFluffnStuff
Summary: "Can you come pick me up?"
Relationships: Aang & Katara (Avatar), Aang/Katara (Avatar)
Series: Breathless [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1981585
Comments: 1
Kudos: 47





	If You Breathe, I Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> (from tumblr) @justoceanmyth's ask for the hurt/comfort dialogue challenge:
> 
> Kataang + "Can you come pick me up?"

Katara licked her lips and swallowed on nothing. Her sweaty palm nearly slipped over the steering wheel as she tested the axles of her father’s car in a sharp right turn. The headlights were broken. _Of course_ they were. The rain made the sky black as pitch, and terror like tar slipped through her blood.

“...’hurts…’s hurts K’tara…”

Katara’s heart howled. ”I know, sweetie. I know. Everything’s going to be okay. Just don't move, do you understand?”

“...’tara…?”

Katara’s phone fumbled in her trembling fingers, and tears misted what the fog of pelting rain didn't blind her from. “Aang, tell me you’re not going to move.” She needed to hear him. He was slipping. His breath was static over the phone and labored like he was held underwater and just now coming up for air.

”Stay…’tay st’l...promise…” Aang tried to cough, but the sound that left him reminded Katara far too much of the patient her mentor had left her to oversee in the first year of her residency. He had died while she was half-way through asking him how his daughter was doing at school.

_Fuck!_ Katara’s cheeks ran wet, and she almost wished the car rolled when she made an even sharper turn. _Fuck!_

”Aang?”

“...”

“Aang?!”

His silence mocked her.

She bit her lip and reminded her lungs to work.

“Aang, don’t you _dare_ die on me!”

Burnt rubber came through the vents as the car hydroplaned.

That’s when she saw him collapsed in the alley. Appa curled around him, and the massive pale dog the size of a small bear was so thoroughly soaked through that Katara almost mistook him for a garbage bag.

Katara pulled the emergency brake, couldn’t find a damn to give when the car stopped at an angle—climbing up the sidewalk—and was at Aang’s side with his emergency bag before the engine purred and died.

“Aang? _Aang?!_ Aang, can you hear me?”

The paler than pale body didn’t move, but a single eye found her out of it’s corner. Aang mouthed her name and had the audacity to smile like he was about to kiss her in greeting.

Katara shoveled his equipment from the bag: fluttervalve, bronchodilator, and percussion vest. “ _Down._ You _stay down_ , Aang, until I move you, do you hear me?”

Aang sagged like a ragdoll and smiled just as pitifully, but Katara had him sitting up against Appa’s side in an instant. Appa sniffed his handler twice and gently bit the band around Aang’s ankle. The message was sent, and Katara’s phone buzzed again.

_Can you please come and get me?_

She thought he had been joking when he said that was what he customized his emergency message as.

Aang’s chest heaved like his lungs were pierced balloons trying desperately to fill, and his shallow wheezing sounded like rubber grinding wet rubber.

Katara knew the routine. A situation like this required precision, but Katara had worked her rounds in enough wards to execute it in what her mentor would deem a perfect score.

Her hands still shook even when Aang found the air to breathe again.

They shook even harder as she carried him to the car. Appa knew the routine. He jumped into the passenger seat, but he didn’t shake, like any other dog might, even though he held an ocean in his pelt.

Aang still smiled at her.

“...’tara…”

“You. Hush. Now.” Katara dabbed his face with the fast-food napkins she kept in the center console. “Not another word. Not another damn word, d-do you hear me?”

Katara cursed her stutter. And even though he was teetering on unconsciousness, Aang smiled ever wider.

Then he _laughed_.

Katara nearly went into cardiac arrest.

“ _Stop!_ Aang, what are you—Are you crazy?!”

“...just...just figu’rin’ tha’ out...out now? I though’t you...knew me bett’r th’n that…”

Katara stiffened but she knew not with what emotion.

Aang laughed some more.

Katara’s lip trembled.

His voice was crushed tree bark and his grip was foam pool noodles, but Katara was in his arms before she could stop him.

“...’s...stay st’ll, K’tara…” His breath crackled in his chest against her ear. He kissed her wet hair and moved her over his heart.

She held him tight. He held her even tighter.

And Aang immediately got to work with a dozen kisses and a dozen more sweet words until he gave Katara her breath back, too.


End file.
